Corner-ladder for railway-cars.



J. 'A. KEYES & I. R. MILLER. OOBNEBLADDER FOB RAILWAY CARS.

APPLICATION FILED H0123, 1910.

Patented Apr. 4, 1911.

bors more-certain and satisfactory as well as UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JOSEPH A. KEYES, 0F PATERSON, NEW TERSEY, AND IRVIN R. MILLER, OF ST. PAUL,

'- MINNESOTA. i

CORNER-LADDER FOR RAILWAY-CARS.

Specification of Letters Patent.

atented Apia- 1, 1911.

Application filed November 23, 1910. Serial No. 593,889.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that we, Josnru A. Knvns and lnvnv R. MILLER, citizens of the United States, and residents of Paterson, in the county of Passaic and State of New Jersey, and of St. Paul, in the county of Ramsey, State of Minnesota, respectively, have in- .vented certain new and useful Improvements in Corner-Ladders for Railway-Cars; and we do herebydeclare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such'as will enable other-s skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same,

Our invention generally stated relates to railwa cars, but more especially to box and other f ieight carrying ca rs and to the equipment thereof with'a novel and efficient safety zip 'liance in the form of a combination end an ,side1adder.-

It has for an pbject that of improving upon the construction and arrangement of the car ladders atiipresent in common use, in

a manner adapted tosafeguard the lives and limbs of employees, thus rendering their laless hazardous than heretofore.

The invention contemplates further the roduction of a ladder for car use of peculiarly simple, durable and etlicient construction embodying, rungs which are adapted and arran ed to extend across both the side and. end 0 a car; embodying a vertical riser or ladder stile to which said rungs are secured at a point intermediate of their car attaching ends; and embodying also certain details of construction and arrangement of parts which will be hereinafter set forth. The invention will be hereinafter particularly described and set forth: in the claims following.

In the accompanying#gdrawings which form part of this application for Letters Patent and whereon like numerals refer to corresponding parts in the several views: Figure 1 is a side elevation of our invention as applied to the side of a freight car. Fig. 2 is an end elevation of our invention as applied to the end of a freight car. Fig. 3 is a horizontal section through our invention taken upon the line 3--3 of Fig.1 looking down. Fig. 4- is a relatively enlarged top plan view of the corner of our invention.-

Fig. 5 is a similarly enlarged side view of a fragment of our ladder stile including one rung in section and one hook bolt for securing said stile and rung together, and Fig. (3 is an enlarged perspective view of a portion of the bottom rung of our improved ladder.

Reference being had to the drawings and numerals thereon, 1 represents the side and 2 the end of a railway car which for purposes of the present invention may be of any known type or form of construction, provided only that ladders are required as in ordinary box and other house cars, gondola cars with high or low sides fixed or drop ends, and some forms of caboose cars upon all of which ladders are usually speci lied and required. For purposes of illustrating the'prescnt invention, however, a refrigerator car has been selected, as best shown by Fig. 3,con'11, rising the outer side and end sheathing boards l and 2 respectively, corner posts 3, vertical tie rods l-t ranged in 'verticabseries, suitably offset frtuu the fa'cc of the car,- and are preferably of angular-form as indicated by Fig. In

their operative position they angle aroiind preference also the individual rungs 10 are of the well known drop pattern as indicated at 12, for purposes which are well understood, and the bottom rung is pro vided with an additional drop .13 to serve as a. foot guard, but at the same time it should bennderstood that our invention is broad enough to include any form of ladder for railway cars and any approved means of attachment provided the ladder rungs are adapted to extend partially across one side and one end of the car.

To the car corner issecurely bolted upper and lower bifurcated hangers 14 and. 15 respectively, preferably of malleable iron and flanged upon opposite, sides as at 16 for purposes of strength, these hangers fire each provided with a pocket 17 in their upper upper end 19 and having its ends securely pinned or otherwise secured in the pockets aforesaid as shown. As thus arranged it will be observed that the ladder stile 18 rests in the angle of rungs 10,and is there firmly secured at equidistant points by U bolts 20 passing transversely through said stile beneath the rungs 10, as best shown by Fig. 5, and by preference having their threaded ends also riveted over. But while the aforesaid relative arrangement of stile 18, rungs 10, and attaching bolts 20 is satisfactory, it should be understood that these details 'rhay be varied indefinitely without departing from the broad features of the present invention, and in like manner the rungs 10 instead of being continuous might within the spirit of this invention be formed of independent end and side sections having their adjacent extremities secured to a common corner-stile either offset from the car corner or not offset as occasion may suggest or requirel This being a description ofour improved corner ladder its purposes are in the main similar to ear ladders in general except it should be noted that in the use of our improved ladder an employee can readily pass from the side to the end of a car or vice versa, practically without lifting his feet from a double rung 10 and at all times with comparative safety even though the passage be attempted, as it frequently the case, in total darkness or in extremely inclement weather. Moreover,-it should be noted that the preferred form of our invention herein shown and described results in rungs 10 extending completely up to and slightly beyond the car corner without the necessity of employing bolts at such point where they would seriously interfere with the usual corner posts and walls of the car. And while but one ladder stile 18 is shown'it is quite obvious that additional stiles may be similarly employed at the ends of rungs 10 if desired, thus dispensing with the individual ieciring bolts 11 passing through the car 0 y.

Having thus described our invention, what we now claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent is: l

1. A ladder for railway cars having rungs A which extend across the side and end of the 5. A corner ladder for railway cars having two series of rungs arranged at an angle to each other,'and a supporting stile common to both serles of rungs.

6. A corner ladder for railway cars having angular rungs'extending around the corner of a car, a corner stile connecting all of said rungs. and means for attaching and offsetting said stile from the corner of the car.

In testimony whereof we afiix our signatures, in presence of two subscribing witnesses.

' JOSEPH A. KEYES. iaviu R. MILLER.

l/Vitnesses Y THOMAS DURANT,

\VM. E. DYRE. 

